


You Can Rest, Assured (All My Love's For You)

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, angst/manpain, derek's feels, het pairings are only background info
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles laughs and sets down his own drink. “When has conventional or appropriate ever mattered to us?” He sits up slightly and looks Derek in the eyes. “I miss us.” He says again. “I miss your stupid collection of classic movies and I miss the album of the kids.”</p>
<p>Derek grins and fails to school it into something less eager. “They hate it when you call them that.”</p>
<p>Stiles grins back. “I know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Rest, Assured (All My Love's For You)

**Author's Note:**

> This took forever because I had the ending planned, and then I forgot, but then I remembered, and then I added flashbacks. Also, it feels so damn good to finally break past writing constant drabbles and get over 3k on something for once.
> 
> OKAY SO.
> 
> This is a future fic, there is angst, it is from mostly Derek’s perspective, and the italic blocks of text are flashbacks.
> 
> Enjoy.

It’s something stupid that sets it off—something outright ridiculous that breaks the camel’s back. It’s something stupid and small and ultimately negligible in the grand scheme of their lives, but it breaks  _everything_.

)

“ _My mom would’ve loved you.” Stiles tells him one day, out of the blue._

_Derek looks over. “My family would’ve loved you, too.”_

_Stiles grins and wipes his eyes._

)

Derek watches the door slam shut and he hates the way an eerie emptiness and silence fills the room, fills the whole house. The blood rushing in his ears practically drowns out the sound of the Jeep skidding away on gravel and dirt. Faintly and distantly, Derek stays latched onto the sound of Stiles’ racing heartbeat, though it only makes his own heart race and ache more.

Derek stumbles over to the recliner— _their_  recliner—and sits, hanging his head and covering his face with his hands. He doesn’t even remember what they said, or what started the fight. He thinks it might’ve been another argument about drink coasters, where Derek tries to explain the difficulty of drink rings left on nice oak tables to Stiles to no effect.

Or maybe it was the organization of the fridge; Stiles only likes the bottles and canned drinks on the top shelf, with jugs of juice and milk on the bottom but not lowest shelf; the middle drawer is for vegetables and the one above that is for cheeses and lunch meats. Derek always puts the orange juice in the side cubby of the fridge door and Stiles always yells at him for it.

Maybe it was that, maybe it was this, maybe it was maybe it was maybe it was—a flurry of ideas run through Derek’s mind, but none stick.

Not that it matters what started the fight, because it’s over.

And, Derek looks out the window, so are they.

)

Derek is eating cold ramen in the wrong size bowl when Stiles returns, folded up cardboard boxes in hand. He looks tired, face an ashen gray and drawn out in exhaustion. Derek watches him silently, but feels the urge to gather him in his arms and carry him upstairs. He doesn’t, though, because Stiles is grabbing photos off the mantel and tables, he’s grabbing his favorite cups and the pitcher that used to be his mom’s, and wrapping them in newspaper, and placing them in boxes.

Derek watches Stiles stare at their wedding photo that rests next to an urn of Laura’s ashes.

“Take it.” Derek hears himself say. “I can print another copy if I want.” Besides, the frame is custom made, the same tree that made Stiles’ parent’s frame. It’s special. Derek catches the sound of Stiles sniffling.

“Okay.” Stiles nods, and packs the picture and frame away as well. He looks around, and Derek does too; Derek wonders if the living room and kitchen look as bare to Stiles as they do to him. Stiles sighs and nods. “I’m staying with Scott until everything is moved out.”

Derek doesn’t nod, or tell Stiles it’s okay, or beg for forgiveness or try to apologize. Stiles nods curtly to him, and gathers the boxes and carries them to the Jeep one by one. Derek lets the bowl clatter into the sink as he listens, for the second time, Stiles’ racing heart and the crackling of the Jeep driving away.

)

Derek has all of Stiles’ clothes packed when Stiles arrives the next afternoon, more boxes with him. Stiles looks at what Derek has packed, all boxed up and piled in the hall next to the stairs. “Oh.” He says, nodding.

“There’s some things upstairs, I wasn’t sure if you wanted them or not.” Things like the shirt that is actually Derek’s but Stiles wears to bed every night, or the sweatpants that Stiles bought for himself, that say ‘werewolf bait’ across the ass, that Derek wears when he can’t be bothered with pants. Shirts, and sweatshirts, and jackets and a hat or two—all of the clothes that are  _theirs_.

Stiles simply shakes his head though. “No, no. I’m sure what you packed is fine.” Stiles stoops to pick up a box and Derek helps, grabbing two boxes and following Stiles to the car.

)

“ _We argue all the time.” Stiles had said once. More than once, almost weekly, really._

“ _It’s part of our charm.” And it was. It was also part of their problems._

)

“I bought it.” Stiles’ feet are planted firmly apart, not that Derek is planning for this to dissolve into a fist fight. (It’s been known to happen with them, though, so it’s not entirely out of the question.)

“I used your credit card.” Derek clarifies. “I stood outside Best Buy in a line of five hundred people at  _one in the morning_  to buy this.”

Stiles isn’t impressed. “It was still my money spent.”

Derek can’t help the rush of fondness that fills him over such petulance. “Fine, take it.” He gestures to the damn television, storming off to grab another box from the kitchen, this time filled with the fancy embroidered towels Stiles hadn’t grabbed yet. “Do you need help.”

Stiles scoffs. “Thanks but no thanks.” Derek listens to the snaps and clatters of the TV being unplugged, the cords hitting the hardwood floor. There’s a grunt, and the sound of heavy footsteps, and Derek listens for any falter in Stiles’ step or breathing. There isn’t any, and Derek hands the box of towels off to him when Stiles comes back.

)

Scott comes buy, looking sad and far too much like a kicked puppy when he should be a grown man. Derek wants to tell him so, Derek wants to  _rage_ , because  _he’s_  the one being divorced, not Scott.  _Derek_  is the one suffering, _Stiles_  is suffering, not Scott. But Derek knows their feelings are bleeding into the pack, so Derek just lets Scott in and ignores the way he smells so vividly of Stiles and pulls Scott to him, growling softly in comfort.

)

“You aren’t taking any of the furniture?” Derek asks as he watches Stiles gather his share of the DVDs.

Stiles pauses. “I don’t really need it. Most of my stuff is still in storage.” It’s old, probably, musty and still smelling faintly of Stiles’ last apartment. There’s probably cobwebs, and Derek chokes down a laugh at the image of Stiles dragging the hideous blue-green-gray couch of the storage center only to encounter a spider and scream. It’s a bright image, vivid in his imagination, because it’s so honest and bolstered by all that he knows of Stiles. It’s a true idea, honest, realistic. “I kind of…” Stiles’ eyes drift to the burgundy recliner.

Derek bristles, though he knows he should’ve been expecting this. It’s their recliner, after all. Derek bought it, but Stiles picked it out. It’s been a fundamental part of the refurbished Hale House since they rebuilt the house. Jackson almost bled out on the chair, Scott spilled coffee along the back of it, there’s stains from cheesy fingers along the armrests and mud at the bottom of the chair. It’s where Derek was sitting the night he was sure Stiles was never coming back to the pack, where he was when he had  _hoped_  Stiles wouldn’t come back, for his safety’s sake.

Stiles  _had_  come back, that same night. He’d crawled into Derek’s lap and they finally kissed over and over and they did a lot more than kiss—Stiles’ pants had ended up under the couch and Derek’s belt was around the ceiling fan, and when it was over Stiles made a crack about orange juice and ‘such a Juno moment.’

Stiles looks to Derek, now. “I. I understand if you want it.”

Derek opens his mouth and closes it again.

“You could just give me visitation rights.”

Derek laughs and cuts himself off, barely. “For a chair?”

Stiles grins but his eyes are deceptively serious. “It’s a lot more than just a chair.”

Derek smiles and feels his eyes water.

Stiles finishes packing up his half of the DVD collection—the well over three hundred DVDs that it is—and leaves. They don’t talk about the chair but Derek prepares himself to see Stiles at ungodly hours, when Stiles can’t sleep and curls up in the chair like he always does.

)

“ _I love you, Derek. I love you.”_

“ _Stiles, this is—”_

“ _I don’t care what this is. I only care about you.”_

)

Derek comes home from work—he works a day or so every few weeks at a nature preserve one town over, it’s nice—to find the Jeep parked in its usual spot and the scent of Stiles littering everything. For a brief moment, Derek’s heart skips a beat. This is home, he thinks. This is everything his home should be, rather than the rapidly dwindling empty shell it’s becoming again. It’s so familiar it burns, it sharpens the ache in his bones.

Derek goes inside, hangs his jacket in the hall closet and leaves his shoes at the door, beside Stiles’ red All Stars. He chases the sound of Stiles’ breathing up the stairs to the study, and finds him on the shea’s lounge, feet tucked under him and books open and stacked around him. Stiles looks up and nods, returning to what Derek knows is his favorite chapter of  _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_. Stiles’ eyes are wet and Derek wants to walk over and kiss the top of his head, like he always does.

But, despite the familiarity, it feels as though ‘always’ has no place now.

Derek hovers in the doorway until Stiles finishes the chapter, and closes the book. He’s got the entire series stacked beside him, and he puts them in a box, and Derek doesn’t protest. They’re Stiles’ books.

Derek watches Stiles sort through the books—an overwhelmingly large collection, like their DVDs—until nothing is left but the photo albums. Derek steps into the room, finally, and leans on the shea’s lounge to look over Stiles’ shoulder.

Stiles and Derek laugh at exactly the same times, and more than once reach forward to turn the page together. There’s at least six pages dedicated to Alison and Scott’s wedding, another three for their first kid. There’s fourteen pages in one album for Stiles’ and Derek’s own wedding, and the rest of the book is filled with candid photos taken by each other or by their friends. There’s one album that’s nothing but kid photos of the entire pack, with silly little taunts and comments scrawled around the pictures and stickers.

Derek comes out of the daze to find Stiles curled up against him, still flicking through the last book.

“You can take whatever ones you want.”

“I’ll take them all, then.” Stiles says, and Derek hates how tired and sad his voice sounds, how heavy it seems and how much the words weigh on them both.

“Go ahead.” Derek says, because he wants nothing else but for Stiles to be happy. If Stiles being only minutely happier means having to reprint some of the pictures and if it means not always having their most inside of jokes on hand, Derek will let it be.

Stiles shakes his head and wipes his eyes. “We’ll need to order more wedding photos.” You can keep the one of the kids.” Stiles sets the album dedicated to the pack aside, but grabs the one of them. “But. This one.”

Derek curls his own hand around it, pressing it more into Stiles’ grip. He leans over and kisses Stiles’ temple. “Take it.”

)

_Derek remembers the way Stiles’ eyes sparkled their wedding day. He remembers, out of the corner of his eye, seeing John tear up and Melissa pat his shoulder. He remembers Peter even pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his eyes with a cheeky smile. Everything was perfect, so much so that Derek almost felt undeserving, until Stiles kissed him in front of their friends and family and made him see how deserved all of this was._

)

It’s been two months since the fight, the fight that’s still nothing but a blur in Derek’s mind. The recliner is still in the living room, but he’s changed the position. Stiles kept it near the window so that it’d always be warm, but Derek hated the way the fabric became sun washed. The DVD shelf attached to the entertainment center is barren, not helped by the fact there’s no TV. The fridge is half as full as it usually is and the right side of the bed is far too cold.

There’s still two toothbrushes in the holder in the bathroom, but one is bone dry and the other regularly used. There’s still a pair of Stiles’ boxers in the dryer, because it’s broken, and they were accidentally left in there the last time Stiles did laundry.

The plants outside are still bright and well nourished, and whenever Stiles stops by—at least one other person in tow—he always comments on how nice they look, how happy he is that they aren’t dead.

Derek never sits in the recliner, now. He barely leaves his bedroom. It’s not depression, he thinks. Depression is endless, like falling down a rabbit hole that just never ends. Derek can feel the brighter side coming, he can feel the warmth of the light at the end of the tunnel. Derek tosses and turns in bed all day for weeks on end not because he has no will to do anything else, but because he needs it. He knows he needs it. He knows that when he finally gets out of bed, things will be better. Depression is uncertainty and anxiety and fear. There’s none of that in what Derek is feeling.

)

It’s been another month, and the papers still aren’t final, when they meet at the grocery store. It’s almost Thanksgiving, and Derek just wanted a few boxes of stuffing to gorge himself on. Stiles is evidently feeding a large army, needing two fourteen pound turkeys as well an ungodly number of potatoes—the Stilinski family recipe, Derek remembers—and stuffing and brine and spices and pie. Derek nods curtly, motioning to his own handbasket of stuffing.

Stiles’ lips draw in a fine line. “Just stuffing?”

Derek shrugs. He’s amused, though. He can see the pain flitting across Stiles’ face.

“You have to come to Scott and Alison’s. I can’t let you gorge yourself on stuffing.”

Derek doesn’t say yes, but he puts some of the stuffing back.

)

Christmas rolls around quickly after that, and Derek finds a thick package of photos shoved into his mailbox. He opens it and spreads the pictures across the kitchen tables and touches each one that Stiles is in.

)

Alison and Scott’s daughter is turning three, soon. And as fruitless Derek thinks it is to have a party for a three year old, they are, and he’s required to go. It’s been seven months since the fight, and Stiles’ mail is still coming to his house and the papers still aren’t final.

Their daughter, Victoria, is adorable as she is annoying. She’s pudgy faced with thick fingers and a healthy toddler’s build. She loves to wear pants under her dresses, and climbs Derek like a tree at any chance she gets.

Derek is blowing raspberries onto her stomach when Stiles walks in with a Jigglypuff cake. Stiles smiles at him, easy, like nothing is different, and Derek catches the scent of fondness and he can feel the ache. Victoria struggles in his grip and chases Stiles into the kitchen for her cake.

)

_When Stiles moves into the Hale house, a year after he and Derek got together, they forgo unpacking boxes to fall into the bed together simply to hold one another as the sun set and fell._

)

Jackson and Lydia are finally tying the knot, and Stiles and Derek end up lumped together in a booth at the only strip club in a three town radius. The girls dancing are nice, and the drinks aren’t terrible priced, but sitting next to Stiles is like sitting next to an open flame.

Stiles snorts as Scott throws a few dollars at a stripper with long dark hair and a sweet face. Stiles leans against Derek, head on his shoulder, and sighs. “I miss us.”

Derek chokes on his sip of martini. “Is this the time to have this conversation?” He asks, even though he’s been dying to say the same thing for weeks— _months_ , really.

Stiles laughs and sets down his own drink. “When has conventional or appropriate ever mattered to us?” He sits up slightly and looks Derek in the eyes. “I miss us.” He says again. “I miss your stupid collection of classic movies and I miss the album of the kids.”

Derek grins and fails to school it into something less eager. “They hate it when you call them that.”

Stiles grins back. “I know.”

)

Derek wakes up as soon as he hears the wheels of the Jeep hit the forest floor. He’s in nothing but sweatpants as he hurries down the stairs, tangled up in sheets and tripping over one of Stiles’ sweatshirts that had been left behind. He makes it to the door just as he hears Stiles murmur to himself, _you can do it, just knock_. Derek opens the door, and Stiles doesn’t look surprised.

“Hey.” Stiles says.

“Hey.” Derek nods, his eyes wide.

“Come here often?” Stiles asks, arms open wide and a nervous grin in place.

Derek takes in his appearance: a red jacket thrown over his bare chest, and the silly polar bear pajama pants that pool at his feet for being too long. Derek inhales sharply, and gathers Stiles into his arms.

Stiles’ arms curl around Derek’s back, and they stumble backwards into the house. They stumble and trip over their shoes and socks being kicked off until they topple sideways into the recliner.

“You moved it,” Stiles says, breathless.

“Yeah.”

“You actually moved it.” Stiles laughs and kisses Derek. Stiles tastes like toothpaste and orange juice, which should be disgusting but it’s so familiar that Derek revels in it. Stiles laughs into his mouth and digs his nails into Derek’s skin. “I love you.” Stiles laughs and whimpers, and his tears fall onto Derek’s face.

“I love you too.” Derek answers, holding Stiles close.

)

“ _I asked you to pick up milk.”_

_Derek sneers. “I’m barely in the door, you can’t just give me a break?”_

_Stiles snarls down at the sink, soapy up to his elbows. “I asked you to pick up milk. It’s kind of important.”_

“ _I’m sorry, okay, it was a long day. I forgot.” Derek knows he doesn’t sound particularly sorry, though. Stiles knows it, too._

_The sponge splats on the counter and the rest of the dishes clatter together in the sink. “You treat everything I say like it’s unimportant! You keep treating me like a child!” Stiles rounds on Derek, hands clenched around the counter. “It’s like everything I say goes in one ear and out the other!”_

“ _Maybe if you didn’t talk as much I wouldn’t have to tune out as much.” Derek barks back, throwing his jacket onto a dining chair and not facing Stiles. He knows it’s a low blow. He can feel the betrayal coming off Stiles in waves. Derek swallows noisily and turns. “Stiles, I’m sorry, that was—”_

“ _That’s how you feel, huh?” Stiles’ eyes are wet and his arms are crossed and he looks so resigned. “Fine. Fine, I get it. Good ol’ Stilinski just can’t keep his fucking trap shut. I totally get it.”_

_Stiles starts to walk, he grabs his jacket and slips into his shoes, and Derek watches him—Derek lets him._

_Derek watches the door slam shut and he hates the way an eerie emptiness and silence fills the room, fills the whole house._

)

Derek looks around, the autumn sun casting colors into the living room at crazy and colorful angles. Boxes are stacked everywhere, and Derek is struck by the nostalgia of Stiles first moving in. Stiles lets the last box drop near the stairwell. He comes up beside Derek, his arms curling around Derek’s waist. “I missed this.”

Derek holds Stiles hands closer to his body and smiles. It’s been a year, the papers have been shredded, and Derek leans into Stiles. “I did, too.”


End file.
